MORGANTOWN — The bye week for West Virginia University football came at an opportune time for the Mountaineers’ quarterbacks. The extra week will allow for the unit to get healthier, which coach Neal Brown said would offer a better barometer for who will play under center and how they’ll be used.
Usual starter Garrett Greene’s head injury, suffered at the end of the first half in the Mountaineers’ loss to Kansas State, is still affecting him, Brown said Monday. That kept him out of WVU’s win over Arizona this past Saturday. Nicco Marchiol started in his stead.
“He’s still struggling a little bit,” Brown said of Greene.
Marchiol thrived in the starting role against Arizona, completing 18 of 22 passes for 198 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Brown lauded the redshirt sophomore for his composure in a tough game.
“I thought he played really under control,” Brown said. “He didn’t do anything that hurt us, and I mean that in the most positive way.We put a lot on him in our read game. We struggled with our snaps, and I thought he did a great job of catching the football … which should be a given, but I mean, he had to make some difficult catches in the game, and I thought he handled that.
“We asked him to make a lot of decisions in the run game, and I thought he did a nice job with that,” Brown continued. “He was really efficient on third downs. I think about where he was his last start (in 2023) against Texas Tech, and then where he was in this game over a year later, and the progress that he’s made as a quarterback and as a football player, I’m just really impressed with that, and it’s a credit to his work.”
But is it enough to give Marchol the nod over Greene in the starting lineup? Brown wasn’t ready Monday to offer that assessment. He did say he doesn’t consider it a good practice for a player to lose a starting job when they’re injured. If the Mountaineers has practiced Monday – Brown gave players and coaches Sunday and Monday off for the bye week – Greene would not have practiced.
Greene, despite throwing eight interceptions against nine touchdowns – he threw only four picks all of last season against 16 touchdowns – is able to make dynamic plays with both his arm and legs. He leads WVU with 67.3 rushing yards per game and is second in total rushing yards with 471, adding three rushing scores.
But Marchiol has completed 70% of his passes this year and thrown just one interception in 40 attempts. Greene has completed just shy of 56% of his passes and has averaged an interception for every 22.1 pass attempts.
“Now, has Nicco played well enough to deserve some playing time? Absolutely,” Brown said. “But as far as like, starter or anything, we’re not gonna talk about that until Garrett’s healthy. And that’s not where we’re at right now.”
Even in terms of integrating Marchiol into more of the game plan each week, Brown said that could be tricky. Quarterback is a position where rhythm is so important, he said, and it might not benefit either quarterback to cycle in and out. It could be done, he added, but it might not be the best situation for them.
The rest of the offense would be fine, Brown said, because they have an abundance of trust and faith in both Greene and Marchiol. Brown said it might make it harder on him as a play caller, as Greene is right-handed and Marchiol is left-handed. But the toughest situation would be for the quarterbacks themselves.
“It is a rhythm position,” he said, “and so you have to be careful, you know, in a rotation type (of scenario), because I don’t think that’s fair to either.”
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WVU’s Nov. 9 game at Cincinnati will kickoff at noon and be broadcast on FS1, the Big 12 conference announced Monday.
— Story by Derek Redd
